Midwest will be self-regulated

5/10/2013

Special to The Hays Daily News

By a nearly 3-to-1 margin, Midwest Energy members voted to self-regulate, giving the cooperative’s member-elected board of directors most of the decision-making authority previously held by the Kansas Corporation Commission.

Nearly 50,000 ballots were mailed to members in April. A total of 11,115 completed ballots were returned to Adams, Brown, Beran and Ball of Hays, an independent accounting firm retained to count the ballots and certify the results. The final count was 8,001 for self-regulation, and 3,114 against.

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Special to The Hays Daily News

By a nearly 3-to-1 margin, Midwest Energy members voted to self-regulate, giving the cooperative’s member-elected board of directors most of the decision-making authority previously held by the Kansas Corporation Commission.

Nearly 50,000 ballots were mailed to members in April. A total of 11,115 completed ballots were returned to Adams, Brown, Beran and Ball of Hays, an independent accounting firm retained to count the ballots and certify the results. The final count was 8,001 for self-regulation, and 3,114 against.

“We were very pleased with the strong ballot response,” said Midwest Energy President and General Manager Earnie Lehman. “We made every effort and took every opportunity to inform members how self-regulation would help our cooperative, and the strong turnout is an indicator we hit our target.”

With the vote, Midwest Energy becomes the 28th of 29 electric cooperatives in Kansas to become self-regulated since the Legislature authorized it in 1992.